Preparatory Clinical Research Training Fellow (Neuroscience)

Applications are invited to apply for one Preparatory Clinical Research Training Fellowship post based in the NIHR and Wellcome Trust King’s Clinical Research Facility (CRF). This post is available for up to 12-months full-time, but shorter-term and part-time posts are also options.

The post is suitable for doctors undertaking specialist training in Psychiatry, Neurology or related disciplines (ST3-5).

Preparatory Fellowships are designed to provide the time, resources and support to help bridge the gap between current training/employment and further professional and career development in research. The Fellow will be expected to plan, prepare and submit an application to an external funding body to continue their research training (e.g. through a 3-year Clinician Training Fellowship), research grant or other Career Development award.

Based in the CRF, the Post is designed to provide interested psychiatry trainees with a background in translational and experimental medicine. The CRF has projects running across the range of disciplines in psychiatry from schizophrenia, depression, dementia and drug abuse through anxiety and staff responses to patient death. There are ongoing projects that use state-of-the-art neuroimaging, in collaboration with the Centre for Neuroscience Imaging, neurogenetics, neurophysiological approaches to measuring brain responses and pharmacological approaches to exploring new treatments and treatment mechanisms. It is envisaged that the Post-Holder would gain experience across the range of these skills, focusing on an area of interest, and yet maintaining a broad exposure to what the CRF does.

The Post-Holder would be directly involved in assessment of patients, procedures including infusions requiring close medical monitoring, and have direct involvement with MR imaging. The post is funded by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and Dementia Unit at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and the appointee will work closely with lead investigators from that group, and thus acquire skills according to their interests. The Post-Holder upon completion would have unmatched skills in translational and experimental medicine that could be leveraged towards research in biological aspects of psychiatry.

With their completed application, candidates are encouraged to submit an outline of their proposed research to be undertaken during the preparatory fellowship. Where a project proposal has not been submitted with the application, the CRF will identify a project and supervisor prior to making the offer of a position to the successful candidate.

Interviews will be held on a date to be confirmed.

Equality of opportunity is College policy.

This is a fixed term post for a maximum of 12 months.

The appointment will be made, dependent on current grade, within the King’s College London Clinical Research (Associate and Fellow) scale £31,301 – £39,693 (equivalent to NHS scale ST3 – 5) plus £2,162 per annum London Allowance.